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Timeline of Plato and Aristotle (with etexts)

Greece
45,000 BC to 440 BC: Heracles : Argonauts : Theban cycle : Trojan cycle : Homer : Hesiod : 'Homeric' hymns : Sappho : Aesop : [map] : Aeschylus : Pindar : Herodotus
440 BC to 322 BC: Sophocles : Euripides : Thucydides : Aristophanes : Xenophon
427 BC to 322 BC: #Plato and #Aristotle
322 BC to present: Plutarch

Rome
200,000 BC to 44 BC: Plautus : Ennius : Cato : Terence : Varro : Julius Caesar
106 BC to 43 BC: Cicero
44 BC to 17 AD: Nepos : Lucretius : Sallust : Catullus : Vitruvius : Virgil : Horace : Augustus : Livy : Priapea : Tibullus : Sulpicia : Seneca the Elder : Propertius : Ovid
19 BC to present: Velleius : Phaedrus : Valerius Maximus : Seneca the Younger : Petronius : Pliny the Elder : Silius Italicus : Frontinus : Persius : Lucan : Quintilian : Josephus : Martial : Valerius Flaccus : Statius : Rufus : Tacitus : Pliny the Younger : Suetonius : Juvenal : Marcus Aurelius : Apuleius : Gellius : Florus : Cassius Dio : Justin : Historia Augusta : Ammianus : Aurelius Victor : Eutropius : Augustine : Claudian

bios: Beaver, Bartleby, Perseus, Math, phil
sequence: debate
apocrypha: Eryxias
criticism: Pater, Suzanne

[links]

Hippias minor (Lesser Hippias)

"I used to hear your father Apemantus say that Homer's Iliad was a finer poem than the Odyssey, and just as much finer as Achilles was finer than Odysseus for he said that one of these poems was made with Odysseus; the other with Achilles as its subject"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, PGut
Commentaries: Jowett

Alcibiades (1)

"Son of Cleinias, I think it must surprise you that I, the first of all your lovers, am the only one of them who has not given up his suit and thrown you over, and whereas they have all pestered you with their conversation I have not spoken one word to you for so many years. The cause of this has been nothing human, but a certain spiritual opposition..."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, PGut
Commentaries: essay

Alcibiades (2, doubtful attribution)

"For tell me, in Heaven's name, do you not think that the gods sometimes grant in part, but in part refuse, what we ask of them in our private and public prayers, and gratify some people, but not others?"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, PGut
Commentaries:

Apology ()

defense of Socrates

"...you shall hear from me the whole truth: not, however, delivered after their manner, in a set oration duly ornamented with words and phrases. No indeed! but I shall use the words and arguments which occur to me at the moment; for I am certain that this is right..."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, EAWC, Constitution [txt], MIT [txt], PGut
Commentaries: Clarke

Euthyphro (380)

"I fancy that he must be a wise man, and seeing that I am the reverse of a wise man, he has found me out, and is going to accuse me of corrupting his young friends."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, EAWC, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries: Clarke

Crito (360)

"I have always thought you happy in the calmness of your temperament; but never did I see the like of the easy, cheerful way in which you bear this calamity."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, EAWC, UMich, UVa, Constitution [txt], MIT [txt], Beaver, Bartleby, PGut, Bjorn, Oz
Commentaries: Clarke, Jowett

Hippias major

"what in the world is the reason why those men of old whose names are called great in respect to wisdom... are all, or most of them, found to refrain from affairs of state?"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus
Commentaries:

Hipparchus (Hipparchos, doubtful attribution)

"And what is love of gain? What can it be, and who are the lovers of gain?"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus
Commentaries:

The Rival Lovers (Erastai, doubtful attribution)

"Then I, surprised at his answer, said: Young man, do you consider philosophising to be shameful? Else, why do you speak so sharply?"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus
Commentaries:

Theages (doubtful attribution)

"there is no more divine matter on which a mortal could take counsel than the education either of himself or of his relations."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus
Commentaries:

Charmides (380, Temperance)

"Then, when there had been enough of this, I, in my turn, began to make enquiries about matters at home-- about the present state of philosophy, and about the youth. I asked whether any of them were remarkable for wisdom or beauty, or both."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn, Oz
Commentaries:

Laches (380, Courage)

"For children are your riches; and upon their turning out well or ill depends the whole order of their father's house."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries:

Lysis (380, Friendship)

"At this he blushed; and I said to him, O Hippothales, thou son of Hieronymus! do not say that you are, or that you are not, in love; the confession is too late; for I see that you are not only in love, but are already far gone in your love. Simple and foolish as I am, the gods have given me the power of understanding affections of this kind."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Lysis
Commentaries:

Protagoras (380)

"You are going to commit your soul to the care of a man whom you call a Sophist. And yet I hardly think that you know what a Sophist is; and if not, then you do not even know to whom you are committing your soul and whether the thing to which you commit yourself be good or evil."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries:

Gorgias (380)

absolute nature of right and wrong.

"...as you profess to be a rhetorician, and a maker of rhetoricians, let me ask you, with what is rhetoric concerned...?"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries:

Meno (380)

asks whether virtue can be taught

"I am certain that if you were to ask any Athenian whether virtue was natural or acquired, he would laugh in your face, and say: 'Stranger, you have far too good an opinion of me, if you think that I can answer your question. For I literally do not know what virtue is, and much less whether it is acquired by teaching or not.'"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries:

Phaedo (360)

"Were you yourself, Phaedo, in the prison with Socrates on the day when he drank the poison?"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, Constitution [txt], MIT [txt], Beaver, Bartleby, PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries: Clarke, [links]

Symposium (360)

perhaps written as a corrective to Xenophon's version (below)

"Then, said Glaucon, let us have the tale over again; is not the road to Athens just made for conversation? And so we walked, and talked of the discourses on love..."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Beaver, Fordham, PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries: Jowett, Planeaux, [links]

Phaedrus (maybe late-- 360?)

"I am fortunate in not having my sandals, and as you never have any, I think that we may go along the brook and cool our feet in the water; this will be the easiest way, and at midday and in the summer is far from being unpleasant."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Beaver, Mirror, UPenn, PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries: [links]

Ion (300, or maybe early?)

"No one can fail to see that you speak of Homer without any art or knowledge. If you were able to speak of him by rules of art, you would have been able to speak of all other poets; for poetry is a whole."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn, Oz
Commentaries:

Menexenus

"In truth, Menexenus, to fall in battle seems to be a splendid thing in many ways."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, PGut
Commentaries:

Euthydemus (maybe early-- 380?)

"this pair of heroes, besides being perfect in the use of their bodies, are invincible in every sort of warfare; for they are capital at fighting in armour, and will teach the art to any one who pays them; and also they are most skilful in legal warfare; they will plead themselves and teach others to speak and to compose speeches which will have an effect upon the courts"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries:

Cratylus (360, maybe early?)

"...our friend Cratylus has been arguing about names; he says that they are natural and not conventional; not a portion of the human voice which men agree to use; but that there is a truth or correctness in them, which is the same for Hellenes as for barbarians"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries:

Republic (360, 10 books)

"the different forms of government make laws democratical, aristocratical, tyrannical, with a view to their several interests; and these laws, which are made by them for their own interests, are the justice which they deliver to their subjects"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, Constitution [txt], MIT [txt], Beaver, UVa, PGut [ditto?], Oz
Commentaries: MIT, [links]

Parmenides (370)

relation between the one and the many

"What is your meaning, Zeno? Do you maintain that if being is many, it must be both like and unlike, and that this is impossible...?"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries:

Theaetetus (360)

"Herein lies the difficulty which I can never solve to my satisfaction-- What is knowledge? Can we answer that question?"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries:

Sophist (360)

nature of nonbeing

"I should like to ask our Eleatic friend, if he would tell us, what is thought about them in Italy, and to whom the terms are applied: sophist, statesman, philosopher."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries:

Statesman (360, Politikos)

"Sophist, statesman, philosopher... you rate them all at the same value, whereas they are really separated by an interval, which no geometrical ratio can express."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries:

Philebus (360, maybe middle?)

"Philebus was saying that enjoyment and pleasure and delight, and the class of feelings akin to them, are a good to every living being, whereas I contend that not these but wisdom and intelligence and memory, and their kindred, right opinion and true reasoning, are better and more desirable than pleasure for all who are able to partake of them..."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries:

Cleitophon (Kleitophon, doubtful attribution)

"...obviously, when I have been taught my good points and my bad, I shall practice and pursue the one and eschew the other with all my might."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus
Commentaries:

Timaeus (360)

"There are conflicts which all cities undergo, and I should like to hear someone tell of our own city carrying on a struggle against her neighbours, and how she went out to war in a becoming manner, and when at war showed, by the greatness of her actions and the magnanimity of her words in dealing with other cities, a result worthy of her training and education."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut [ditto?], Bjorn
Commentaries:

Critias (360)

"...the combatants on the other side were commanded by the kings of Atlantis, which, as I was saying, was an island greater in extent than Libya and Asia, and when afterwards sunk by an earthquake, became an impassable barrier of mud to voyagers sailing from hence to any part of the ocean..."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries:

Minos

"Tell me, what is law?"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus
Commentaries:

The Laws (360)

"Tell me, strangers, is a god or some man supposed to be the author of your laws?"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Bjorn
Commentaries:

Epinomis (Nocturnal Council)

"...we have come all three-- you and I and Megillus here-- to consider in what terms we ought to describe that part of understanding which we say produces, when it so intends, the most excellent disposition of the human being for wisdom which is possible for man."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus
Commentaries:

Letters (360, Epistles)

"...some of those in power brought my friend Socrates, whom I have mentioned, to trial before a court of law, laying a most iniquitous charge against him and one most inappropriate in his case: for it was on a charge of impiety that some of them prosecuted and others condemned and executed the very man who would not participate in the iniquitous arrest of one of the friends of the party then in exile, at the time when they themselves were in exile and misfortune..."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT-7th [ditto]
Commentaries:

bios: Bjorn, Math, Perseus, Italy

[overview] [links]

neologisms: universal/particular, premiss/conclusion, subject/attribute, form/matter, potentiality/actuality

lost works: Protrepticus (Exhortation to Philosophy, early)

Athenian Constitution (3 parts)

"Not only was the constitution at this time oligarchical in every respect, but the poorer classes, men, women, and children, were the serfs of the rich."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, Constitution, MIT [txt], Fordham, Bjorn
Commentaries:

Categories (Organon 1; 3 parts)

"Thus, a real man and a figure in a picture can both lay claim to the name 'animal'; yet these are equivocally so named, for, though they have a common name, the definition corresponding with the name differs for each."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], PGut, Bjorn
Commentaries:

On Interpretation (Organon 2; 2 parts)

"First we must define the terms 'noun' and 'verb', then the terms 'denial' and 'affirmation', then 'proposition' and 'sentence.'"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Bjorn
Commentaries:

Prior Analytics (Organon 3; 2 parts)

"A premiss then is a sentence affirming or denying one thing of another. This is either universal or particular or indefinite."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Bjorn, VT
Commentaries:

Posterior Analytics (Organon 4; 2 parts)

"Recognition of a truth may in some cases contain as factors both previous knowledge and also knowledge acquired simultaneously with that recognition..."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Bjorn, VT
Commentaries:

Topics (Organon 5; 8 books)

"Our treatise proposes to find a line of inquiry whereby we shall be able to reason from opinions that are generally accepted about every problem propounded to us, and also shall ourselves, when standing up to an argument, avoid saying anything that will obstruct us."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Bjorn
Commentaries:

Refutations in the Manner of the Sophists (Organon 6; 3 parts)

"Let us now discuss sophistic refutations, i.e. what appear to be refutations but are really fallacies instead."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Bjorn
Commentaries:

Metaphysics (14 books)

"All men by nature desire to know. An indication of this is the delight we take in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness they are loved for themselves; and above all others the sense of sight."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Fordham, Bjorn
Commentaries:

Physics (8 books)

"The principles in question must be either (a) one or (b) more than one. If (a) one, it must be either (i) motionless, as Parmenides and Melissus assert, or (ii) in motion, as the physicists hold, some declaring air to be the first principle, others water."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Fordham, Bjorn, VT
Commentaries:

On the Heavens (4 books)

"For, as the Pythagoreans say, the world and all that is in it is determined by the number three, since beginning and middle and end give the number of an 'all', and the number they give is the triad."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Bjorn, VT
Commentaries:

De Generatione et Corruptione (On Coming into Being and Passing Away; 2 parts)

"Those, then, who construct all things out of a single element, must maintain that coming-to-be and passing-away are 'alteration'."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Bjorn, VT
Commentaries:

Meteorology (4 parts)

"The question is really about that which lies between the earth and the nearest stars. Are we to consider it to be one kind of body or more than one? And if more than one, how many are there and what are the bounds of their regions?"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Bjorn
Commentaries:

De Anima (On the Soul, 3 books)

"To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Bjorn
Commentaries:

On the Parts of Animals (4 books)

"But if men and animals and their several parts are natural phenomena, then the natural philosopher must take into consideration not merely the ultimate substances of which they are made, but also flesh, bone, blood, and all other homogeneous parts; not only these, but also the heterogeneous parts, such as face, hand, foot; and must examine how each of these comes to be what it is, and in virtue of what force."

MIT [txt], Bjorn, VT

On the Motion of Animals

"Accordingly it is plain that each animal as a whole must have within itself a point at rest, whence will be the origin of that which is moved, and supporting itself upon which it will be moved both as a complete whole and in its members."

MIT [txt], Bjorn

Historia Animalium (Inquiry into Animals; 9 books)

"Of the parts of animals some are simple: to wit, all such as divide into parts uniform with themselves, as flesh into flesh; others are composite, such as divide into parts not uniform with themselves, as, for instance, the hand does not divide into hands nor the face into faces."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Bjorn, VT
Commentaries:

On the Gait of Animals

"Next, why are man and bird bipeds, but fish footless; and why do man and bird, though both bipeds, have an opposite curvature of the legs?"

MIT [txt], Bjorn

On the Generation of Animals

"Serpents copulate twining round one another, and, as said above, have neither testes nor penis, the latter because they have no legs, the former because of their length..."

Bjorn

On Sense and the Sensible (2 parts)

"The faculty of seeing, thanks to the fact that all bodies are coloured, brings tidings of multitudes of distinctive qualities of all sorts; whence it is through this sense especially that we perceive the common sensibles, viz. figure, magnitude, motion, number..."

MIT [txt], Bjorn

On Sleep and Sleeplessness

"If waking, then, consists in nothing else than the exercise of sense-perception, the inference is clear, that the organ, in virtue of which animals perceive, is that by which they wake, when they are awake, or sleep, when they are awake, or sleep, when they are asleep."

MIT [txt], Bjorn

On Dreams

"...if all creatures, when the eyes are closed in sleep, are unable to see, and the analogous statement is true of the other senses, so that manifestly we perceive nothing when asleep; we may conclude that it is not by sense-perception we perceive a dream."

MIT [txt], Bjorn

On Prophesying by Dreams

"The fact that all persons, or many, suppose dreams to possess a special significance, tends to inspire us with belief in it..."

MIT [txt], Bjorn

On Memory and Reminiscence

"Now to remember the future is not possible, but this is an object of opinion or expectation (and indeed there might be actually a science of expectation, like that of divination, in which some believe); nor is there memory of the present, but only sense-perception."

MIT [txt], Bjorn

On Longevity and Shortness of Life

"Hence if, in all cases, whenever the active and the passive exist together, the one acts and the other is acted on, it is impossible that no change should occur. Further, this is so if a waste product is an opposite, and waste must always be produced; for opposition is always the source of change, and refuse is what remains of the previous opposite."

MIT [txt], Bjorn

On Youth and Old Age, On Life and Death, On Breathing (2 parts)

"All perfectly formed animals are to be divided into three parts, one that by which food is taken in, one that by which excrement is discharged, and the third the region intermediate between them."

MIT [txt], Bjorn

Nicomachean Ethics (10 books)

"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: hypertext, Constitution, Perseus, ILT, MIT [txt], Fordham, Bjorn, PDF
Commentaries:

Eudemian Ethics

"Happiness is at once the pleasantest and the fairest and best of all things whatever."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt]
Commentaries:

Virtues and Vices

"Fine things are the objects of praise, base things of blame; and at the head of the fine stand the virtues, at the head of the base the vices"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus
Commentaries: MIT

Politics (8 books)

"But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good."

quote on 'polis' [tm5.4] [etext]

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Fordham, Constitution, Bjorn, PDF, extracts [ditto] [ditto], Spartan Women
Commentaries: TMartin, email

Economics

"The component parts of a household are (l) human beings, and (2) goods and chattels. And as households are no exception to the rule that the nature of a thing is first studied in its barest and simplest form, we will follow Hesiod and begin by postulating 'Homestead first, and a woman; a plough-ox hardy to furrow.'"

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt]
Commentaries:

Rhetoric (3 books)

"It is not right to pervert the judge by moving him to anger or envy or pity-- one might as well warp a carpenter's rule before using it."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, MIT [txt], Bjorn, VT
Commentaries: Hobbes

Poetics (3 books)

"Epic poetry and Tragedy, Comedy also and Dithyrambic poetry, and the music of the flute and of the lyre in most of their forms, are all in their general conception modes of imitation."

Greek etext: Perseus
Translations: Perseus, Adams, MIT [txt], Fordham, PGut, Bjorn, [search]
Commentaries: links, email

Greek language: guide

histories: Smith ebook, Tarbell ebook (art)

essays: AHB

myths: Colum, Lang ditto

occ = MC Howatson's Oxford Companion to Classical Literature

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